"Bruce Sterling - Gurps' Labour Lost" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

Bruce Sterling

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GURPS' LABOUR LOST



Some months ago, I wrote an article about the raid on Steve
Jackson Games, which appeared in my "Comment" column in the
British science fiction monthly, INTERZONE (#44, Feb 1991).
This updated version, specially re-written for dissemination by
EFF, reflects the somewhat greater knowledge I've gained to
date, in the course of research on an upcoming nonfiction book,
THE HACKER CRACKDOWN: Law and Disorder on the Electronic
Frontier.

The bizarre events suffered by Mr. Jackson and his co-workers,
in my own home town of Austin, Texas, were directly responsible
for my decision to put science fiction aside and to tackle the
purportedly real world of computer crime and electronic
free-expression.

The national crackdown on computer hackers in 1990 was the
largest and best-coordinated attack on computer mischief in
American history. There was Arizona's "Operation Sundevil,"
the sweeping May 8 nationwide raid against outlaw bulletin
boards. The BellSouth E911 case (of which the Jackson raid was
a small and particularly egregious part) was coordinated out of
Chicago. The New York State Police were also very active in
1990.

All this vigorous law enforcement activity meant very little to
the narrow and intensely clannish world of science fiction.
All we knew -- and this misperception persisted, uncorrected,
for months -- was that Mr. Jackson had been raided because of
his intention to publish a gaming book about "cyberpunk"
science fiction. The Jackson raid received extensive coverage
in science fiction news magazines (yes, we have these) and
became notorious in the world of SF as "the Cyberpunk Bust."
My INTERZONE article attempted to make the Jackson case
intelligible to the British SF audience.

What possible reason could lead an American federal law
enforcement agency to raid the headquarters of a science-fiction
gaming company? Why did armed teams of city police, corporate
security men, and federal agents roust two Texan
computer-hackers from their beds at dawn, and then deliberately